Wednesday, February 10, 2010

I'm a lucky girl

I was just reading a thread on Dooce's community forum where the question was asked:

Do you ever think that your SO (significan other) does certain chores "all wrong" so he/she doesn't get asked to do them? Do you ever do this?Hoo boy, some of the responses on that particular subject are funny! For the most part, each person has detailed a scenario in their respective households where either their SO is God's Gift to Women because he's so perfect and does everything right, or he's lazy and does it all. wrong. On purpose.

That got me to thinking. I have a husband who doesn't do things badly to get out of doing them, but sometimes he does things in a way that I don't like. Not wrong, or bad, just... different. In particular, folding clean laundry. But that's my issue, not his, right? Being the good wifey poo that I am, I have told him that from now on I will fold the laundry if he washes it. Pretty sweet deal on his part, yeah? I thought so. He gets the easy part of it all while I get to come home to cold, wrinkled laundry heaped up on our bed and attempt to wrangle it all into an illusionary state of organizationalness. In my desire to not "complain" about what he doesn't do my way, I've come up with a solution that still leaves me holding the short end of the stick with unmatched white socks lying all over the place, and who can fold laundry whilst holding onto a SHORT STICK? I digress...

The point of this entry was not to complain about the wrinkled laundry, though. It was actually to give The Hubster a good, old fashioned pat on the back. Because what he lacks in the laundry folding department? He TOTALLY makes up for in the bathroom cleaning and dog-poop-pick-up departments.

Did you hear me, interwebs?! My husband cleans the entire bathroom AND picks up the droppings from our pups. How did this come to be? Well, cozy right on up with your notepad and pencil (in case you need to take notes the old fashioned way) and I'll tell you!

Back when The Hubster and I first started living together, before he was The Hubster, I set some ground rules. Okay, ground RULE.

I told The Hubster that he had two options. He could either sit down and pee, or he could clean the bathroom EVERY. TIME. it needed cleaning. Now, I'm not trying to emasculate him and make him sit. I'm perfectly happy for him if he feels more like a man by standing. The logic here is that I sit down to pee and I don't miss, therefore I don't make a mess. But boys? No way. Even if they are aiming, stuff still splashes and it's not my stuff splashing out, so it's only fair that he clean up his own mess. Surprisingly, Hubster didn't argue my point and has been cleaning the bathroom weekly for over 2 years now! I have occasionally done it myself, but it's rare and I avoid it at all costs. There is nothing sexier than a clean bathroom!

Well, nothing sexier than The Hubster in his boxers, scrubbing the toilet with his yellow rubber gloves on. (If he ever finds out that I wrote that, he'd kill me!)

Also, it should be noted, he has only once left the toilet seat up in all our time together. I almost fell in, reamed him for it and, after he got a good laugh out of it, hasn't done it since. I love this man.

BUT! Onto the dog poo. Oh Sweet Lord, the dog poo. We have 2 pooches, for those of you who don't know. Chubbs is a big guy, about 80 lbs, and Chloe is a wittle baby, all of 7.5 lbs. Needless to say, it's pretty easy to spot where the big guy likes to, ahem, do his business. Chloe, not so much. It makes the job even harder for him because he has to hunt for it! So once a week or so The Hubster heads outside with his pockets stuffed full of plastic grocery bags, ready to tackle the turds head on. After about a half an hour, I get a call from outside to come and look, and I know what's there waiting for me.

A grinning hubster with a bag full of poo, holding it up proudly. And every time, he exclaims: